


The Book

by HerbalMaiden



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 14:57:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12655794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerbalMaiden/pseuds/HerbalMaiden
Summary: The Long Night is over and the rightful king of Westeros sits his throne as peace is reestablished in the Kingdom. Sansa Stark continues to purge the Red Keep of any reminders of its former usurpers when she stumbles across an unexpected item. Her memories are churned up and a spark she'd tried to forget is reignited.





	The Book

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a one shot! Purely written for pleasure, not profit. I own nothing that belongs to the written worlds of G.R.R. Martin. Reviews are love!!!

Sansa Stark traced the thick leather cover with the faintest touch of her fingertips. Somehow, the Book of the Kingsguard had escaped Cersei Lannister's fiery destruction of the White Sword Tower when half the capital had burned green and black. As the book had been discovered amongst Jaime Lannister's belongings, Sansa had assumed he had rescued the nearly mythical tome, written in only by the hands of former commanders of the coveted Kingsguard. 

Found in the chambers more recently occupied by the "Mad Queen," Sansa had paused in her ceaseless of renovating the Red Keep of any reminders of the former usurpers. 

But the bloody book...... The Princess of the North sat right on her arse on a golden lion pelt sprawled by the fire. She allowed the heft of the tome to rest in her lap. Her fingers itched desperately, and she could not resist flipping to the last pages with ink upon them. Her thoughts drifted to a white cloak, pristine once upon a time, a sight that had reminded her of southern songs and fairytales as a child, the stories that had given her heart reason to break so easily. 

The cloak darkened in the shadows and rasped defiantly along stone floors with its superior length. Until one night, he had come to her with the cloak marred with blood and smoke.

Yet so impressive a man's name could not be found amongst his sworn brothers, the ones he mocked openly. No deeds to be glorified in the histories for the future generations, generations that may not have been if not for a man of his likes. He, a rare non-ser kingsguard to be lost amongst the years and famed stories of falseness. 

Sansa reached over angrily for the ink well and a quill. Despite her sudden fury and flushed cheeks, her hand writing was flawless as she recounted his deeds. Thoughts that years of hardship and separation could not banish from her mind, that plagued her dreams and errant thoughts when the days faded from one to the next with an inevitability that she had once taken for granted. 

He had saved the bastard boy king's betrothed during a riot, a princess mocked and called traitor in his court. The kingsguard had raised his voice to the same said king to save the princess betrothed from further bodily harm. He had even tried to salvage her modesty with his white cloak before the court, guarding his future queen and disparaging his king with the simplest and purest of gestures. 

During the War of the Five Kings, he had chewed through his collar and fled his old masters for freedom. Instead, he had found himself protecting another Stark Princess, this one less pliant. He even managed to steal her from a deadly fate at the Red Wedding, where the King in the North, Robb Stark, had been murdered.

This man had been one of very few brave, or foolish, enough to travel beyond the Wall to steal proof from under the White Walkers' noses. And he returned to the Seven Kingdoms alive. 

He fought the Others and saved the Rightful King to the Iron Throne more than once in the wars between the living and the dead, between ice and fire. The Forgotten Kingsguard was the first to bend his stiff knee to the King of Westeros and the Far North. He had delivered the Lady Stark and the King of Westeros's first heir through the war-torn North, evading the armies of the dead, to reach the shores of the Narrow Sea. In case Westeros was lost to the Others, he had made sure she and the heir were on a ship to wait the war in hiding far from the front lines. 

And he had been lost in battle.

Sansa put her hand down gently. She had so much more to say. Their song was a private one, known only by her now. How many times had he saved she and the King's heir as they had traveled swiftly and alone through treacherous terrain and even more terrifying enemies? Could she count the instances he had braved his worst fear for her?

After all his deeds and untold tales of courage, the kingsguard had been lost in the Battle for Winterfell, but not before placing his King on his own blasphemous steed to ride hard for the Neck, the Dragons already far off with their mother. 

Eventually, the war had been won in a final standoff between King Jahearys Targaryen and the Night King at the Eyrie. Only after the Neck had been destroyed and rushed over with the freezing Narrow Sea and waters to the West crashing to become one. The Wight Dragon Viseryon had been defeated, and Rhaegal, his brother, with him. 

And when Alyssa's tears continued to fall, they were seen in the Dawn once more, for the first time in ten years. 

Defeating Cersei had been easy in comparison to the decade long war waged against the dead. The Mad Queen had been prepared, to die or to win. It took mere weeks for King Jahaerys and his good council to turn the Lannister's few paid allies to support him. Two years of siege, unwilling to fight as the Old Lion had, and the King had finally resorted to using his father's sigil to end Westeros's last war. 

In the end, after half of Kingslanding had been ignited with Drogon's black fiery breath and the unintentional wildfire explosions, Arya had slipped into the Red Keep poised with Qyburn's face. The false non-maester had lured his usurper queen into his laboratory, only to have her face the true Qyburn, a twitching bleeding pile on the floor, the Mountain a charred pile of death and melted armor beside him. King Jahaerys Targaryen held his stance, his Valyrian blade's point resting on the stones. 

The usurpers had been placed in chains, the black cells filled with the worst of the Red Keep's purging. Justice would be dealt to those who had roamed free and brought chaos unto the innocents of the realm for too long. Public beheadings had been the punishment of choice, as declared by the realms' new king. For days, the King returned to his chambers with aching arms. True to his word, as the man who sentenced his subjects, he swung the sword of justice. He swung for his loses, his mother, his father, his uncles, his cousins, the siblings he never met. He swung for all the opportunities stripped from him and the weight of duty he bore upon his shoulders since boyhood. But even when his arms ached and his duties came to him in endless ravens and meetings, the King found reason to smile. Even when his heart's desires could not be achieved, despite all of his accomplishments and heroic deeds, he smiled as he brought the saved portion of Westeros to heel. Peace meant his daughter was now home. Their new home.

Jahaerys, called Jon by his family and closest friends, lived for the time in his daughter's presence. Now one and ten name days, Jon chose not to frown over the fact that his daughter had never known his face until now. She had been sent to safety at the age of three, too young to remember him during her early life in Winterfell. Seven years, Sansa had cared for her, raised her, ensured she became every ounce of royalty her heritage bestowed her. And Jon had not been disappointed when a small rowboat had delivered her into his arms on the shores of Water Gardens, his temporary capital during the siege of Kings Landing. The years of letters, first from Sansa, later from his daughter's growing hand, and the charcoal renderings Sansa had drawn herself, had not done his daughter justice. Lyanna was an exceptional beauty, her eyes filled with mirth even while her face schooled icily in resemblance to Sansa's northern ferocity. She had her mother's silver hair that curled in unruly waves. But her eyes were the darkest shade of purple, nearly black, just as her father's. 

When the White Walkers had been defeated and Doran had offered his home to Jon and his retinue to recuperate and rule from until Cersei's defeat, Jon had immediately sent for Sansa and Lyanna. Tyrion had suggested the Golden Company to escort them. But instead, his cousin and daughter had arrived on a moonless night in the hand's of a smuggler. Jon had waited nervously, his hands sweating even as winter's icy grip finally released its hold on the Western world. But a shadow in shimmering silks had jumped the sides of the small vessel to trudge through waist deep water in his direction. He met her in the cold shoals only to feel her narrow arms wrap tightly around him, and Sansa's laughter floating over the rippling surface to encircle their long awaited reunion. 

Sansa sung to the King's daughter in their first days at Kingslanding, as if Lyanna could hear the swing of her father's Valyrian sword carrying his sentences. The girl was not the babe that had been sent away for a last chance at safety. 

Years ago, shortly after the Long Night had settled over their half of the world, Sansa had sat doing needle work with her rationed candlelight. She wore only her night shift, but a heavy pelt had dwarfed her narrow shoulders to encompass her as she bent over at the waist to focus on her work. Sevenmass was swiftly approaching, and Winterfell's halls seemed desolate despite the holidays that once brought such cheer and festivity. 

Lyanna slept in her cradle, only an arm's length from Sansa. The babe's mother had died shortly after the birthing, and her father could not bring a child to the battlefront. She had been born in the Lord's chambers of Winterfell, while her father had lead a scouting party beyond the Wall, where the Night King licked his wounds from a failed attempt at Castle Black. It was the Lady Stark of Winterfell that had been entrusted with the task of raising the heir to Westeros while her father fought ancient monsters for her future. 

Sansa recalled that night in perfect detail. The knock at the door. She had thought it a chambermaid. 

Instead, she found herself facing a man she had once thought dead, until recently. Somehow, he had found himself a part of a new royal court, a kingsguard to King Jahaerys, her cousin. And she had only been privy due to its brief mentioning in one of Jon's few and far between raven scrolls.

But seeing him in the flesh was another story. Her needle point fell from her hands and she let the pelts fall with it as she came to her full height. She did not care that the fires showed her figure through the threadbare sleep gown she wore, he was there.

"The little bird no longer chirps to the Hound?" he had rasped after a moment. 

Sansa still couldn't recall her feet moving or the tears that had trailed her cheeks. She only remembered the heat of his arms and body and the way she had heard his heart beat against her ear for long long moments. When she had pulled away to peer into his face, she took in the lines the years had left at his mouth and the corners of his eyes. She saw new scars. But his expression was torn, and she shivered. 

"Come," he said gently, he had lead her without fear to the warmth of the fire, their knees brushing as they say across from one another. She felt a child, a sleepover, staying up well beyond her mother's determination of propriety. 

For hours they spoke in hushed voices, of where they had been, what they had survived, who they had encountered. Eventually, he had told her that he was able to see in the flames, had overcome his fear and been cursed and blessed with glimpse of things to come. And that he had seen her. Sandor had looked at the babe, easily looking over the edge of cradle from his seated position by the hearth. He wanted to give her a moment to let his claim sink in. Pushing past his insecurities, he swallowed and reached over to clasp Sansa's hand. 

"The dead will breach the Wall, and Winterfell will not survive the siege," he had rasped to her with certainty. "You, the babe, and Jon, must be gone when the dead approach the gates." 

"No!" she declared roughly. "I have finally made it home." 

"Little bird..."

"I'm a wolf! Not a bird!" she raised her voice. "I won't leave so soon! I won't!" 

Sandor had been the one to lift the babe and hush it as Sansa's defiance had woken her. He looked over the silvery hair to peer at Sansa, her braid askew and dark circles beneath her eyes. "You will, for her sake, for yours." 

"And what of my wants?" she sniffed. "You're here, Sandor - I thought perhaps you'd come for -" she shook her head. "Nevermind." 

"I've come to save you, to redeem myself for failing you before," Sandor confessed. "There is time. Winterfell will not fall until the Wall is breached." 

Sansa pondered that for a moment and cradled the child that Sandor gently pressed to her arms. "I will go with her to safety, but only if you are the one to protect us, to take us there."

"On my life, I will take you to safety," he vowed, pulling a dragon glass dagger from his hip, He had offered its simple bone hilt to her, to do with as she pleased. 

But Sandor Clegane had stayed long enough for her to rock the babe to sleep. Exhaustion had eventually taken the Lady of Winterfell, and he carried her to her bed, covering her with the numerous pelts sprawled over the feather mattress. By candlelight, he had left a letter on the unused pillow. His furlough was only long enough to grant her word of warning and time enough to return to Castle Black to protect the King once more. 

Twice more Sandor Clegane had used his precious times of freedom to grace her with his presence. Just a week after Lyanna's third nameday and he had arrived to smuggle them from the great keep. Earlier that same day Sansa had received a raven reporting Castle Black's demise, and she knew the North would be lost. 

When Sandor Clegane had arrived at her door, Winterfell was in a state of controlled chaos as they prepared for the impending siege. Sansa was in her chambers with Lyanna, the small child unafraid of the scarred man. She held her arms up to be lifted to his enormous height. He did as told, his eyes boring into Sansa's with the emergency of the situation.

"Dress in your heaviest clothes, as many layers as you and the girl can manage," he had instructed them.

Sansa had sewn her jewels into her skirts earlier that day. A sack of gold was already tucked away in her saddle back, brimmed with hard meats, bread, and cheeses to cushion its clinking. She'd had her mare saddled earlier that day, under the excuse for a last trip to help the convince the people of Winter Town to take shelter in the Keep. 

By the time she was dressed and ready to go, Lyanna was asleep in Sandor's armored arms. Sansa looked like a fat peasant with her layers and dreary brown cloak. And not a soul took bother to question as they left the shelter that had stood thousands of years. 

Their travels to the shore of White Harbor had been bereft with danger. Hordes of mindless wights terrorized the isolated homes and villages of the North, the freshly killed left behind in the snow drifts, soon to be fodder for the Night King's armies. Bandits and thieves scavenged and pestered the people weaker than them. Several lost their lives to Sandor Clegane, to be left alit pyres in their wake. 

Despite the bitter cold and the complaints and wonder of a small girl, Sansa took pleasure in every moment of their journey. The horses were strong and endured as they went from abandoned building to abandoned building for shelter. Sansa craved the moments where Lyanna lay in her arms, and Sandor cradled her from behind to give her his warmth. She would wake with this raven black hair entwined with hers, his breath hot against her neck. And a hardness against her bottom that made her smile to herself when she reflected on the blush that Sandor would wake with when he took notice of his arousal. She would laugh quietly as he scowled at her without effort, and she took to calling him her wolfhound. 

Until they reached their destination. 

White Harbor was bustling despite the fact that Lord Manderly had sent nearly all of his forces to the Wall to fight the Walkers, now retreating to defend Winterfell. The women worked all hours to send supplies to Winterfell, to keep their own stores stocked. They traded with foreign ships while the men were away and kept their businesses afloat. 

Sandor marched her straight the docks, Lyanna complained the horses were moving too slow against the crowds. Sansa continued to grip his hand tightly as they approached the very last ship. A mermaid graced its bow in a figure head that must have measured twenty feet high. The ship was a monstrous feat of engineering. Its sailors spoke Norvoshi. 

"This is she," Sandor rasped at her, hauling her mare and much lighter saddle bags to a halt. "On board, you will find Davos Seaworth. He will -"

Sansa frowned. "You lied," she finally realized, verbalizing its truth.

"No, I said I would send you to safety, and I am," he growled. He moved his hands to her shoulders in a firm grip. "Send me back to battle for your home knowing the mad fire visions were not in vain." 

Sansa bit her lip, trying to keep her tears at bay, if not for his sake, for Lyanna's. Fear rose in her chest. Her certainty was vanishing. She nodded. Even though she would rather have thrown herself at his feet and wrapped her arms around his legs to keep him with her. 

Sandor moved a hand to cup her face. "You will return to Westeros, when the war is over. Your brother has promised." 

"It will not matter," she cried softly, her faced turned to allow her lips to brush the palm of his hand. "It will not matter if you are not here to greet me." She paused and straightened her shoulders, her grief pushed aside in favor of determination. "Vow to me Sandor Clegane, that you will not die in this war." 

The giant of a man swallowed hard before taking a knee in front of her. "I promise you, Sansa Stark." 

Sansa offered her hand to him and he rose to his feet. She expected more words, more promises that may never see the light of dawn if her cousin and his men, such as Sandor Clegane, were to fail. But instead, his lips pressed against hers firmly, raw and soft against her own, warm despite the bitter cold air. 

Sandor Clegane had never been a kingsguard in truth. He had been her faithful hound, her wolfhound. And he would have done anything to keep her safe. 

Sansa brushed her lips as she remembered the only two kisses she had received from Sandor Clegane. The first amongst smoke and green shadows, a man and girl who did not recognize her own desires. The last a farewell as she remained on the dock and she climbed the gang plank of an Essosi trade ship. 

Sansa assumed she would return to Westeros to take her rightful place as Lady of Winterfell, but it was not to be. All lands beyond the Neck had been sacrificed in the war in effort to stop the Night King from prevailing. It had worked in the end, but the North's sacrifice had been its utter abandonment. In the wake of the Night King's demise, the land had been left to hordes of remaining wights and the Free Folk, Dothraki, and Essosi men and women who had been left behind in the great divide. 

The remaining living beyond the Neck had resorted to creating clans and hoards to survive the harsh living conditions, to survive against the dead that no longer had a leader to follow. Territories were created and fought over, women were stolen and carried off to new clans. The North had become a violent place of fighting and discord. 

Sansa had followed Jon to the capital, to live with what remained of her family. She had a cousin, a niece, and a sister, though her sister had promptly run off for Essos after the Lannisters were removed from power. Sansa's niece loved her dearly, and cried for a week as a little girl when Sansa had tried to explain why Lyanna could not call her mother. 

Only when she had returned to Westeros, to the exotic lands of the Dornish Water Gardens, did she discover the fate of Sandor Clegane. Jon, the clueless man that he was sometimes, had been oblivious of their friendship. He had recounted how the man had returned in time to help protect the Northern gate, only to send Jon away on his own steed, Stranger, to escape the slaughter. Jon said that a raven had reached him weeks after the battle - only to say that Winterfell was a lost cause until the dead were defeated - unsigned. Sansa had cried herself to sleep when she'd been told, her grief only hers to bear. 

And then there was Val, Jon's secret mistress, the woman he loved with all his heart, more so than he had ever learned to love his prior arranged wife. Val's smiles were able to melt Jon's oft times frozen heart, able to draw him from his dark moments of reflections and regret. Sansa had told him early on that she knew the nature of their relationship. She had told him to embrace it, to take her as wife. 

But no, Jon was too honorable to take a 'wildling' against his court's wishes. Especially Tyrion, who had arranged his second marriage, to the only house that was an equal match to heritage. 

And so she and Jon shared the guilt and melancholy of their impending marriage. Neither looked forward the modest wedding and feast they had planned. Tomorrow she would become Jon's wife, and in a week, their official coronation would take place. 

Sansa forced the thought away and looked down at the newly created Kinsguard page for Sandor Clegane. 

Jon suddenly rushed into the room, a half unwound scroll in his hand while Lyanna clung to his back like an exotic monkey from the Summer Isles. Her arms and legs were wrapped around him. She wore her training clothes, having just finished a practice session with her father. 

"Sansa, it seems Winterfell still stands," he exclaimed, meeting her gaze with wide eyes. "A fortress amongst the wyld clans and bands. They say one man holds the castle. Day and night the walls go undefeated. For seven years and we did not know..." he trailed off in thought as he set Lyanna down and offered his hand to help Sansa to her feet. "Must be a giant to keep the hoards at bay," he added as he shook his head, his curls escaping their leather tie.

Sansa set the book down upon the desktop, leaving the pages open to allow the ink to dry. "Indeed," she agreed gently, her hand stroked Lyanna's hair, equally mussed as her father's after a challenging spar. "Off to your bath, then to the septa," she urged to the girl, sending her out the door. 

Jon waited until the light footsteps of his daughter trailed off. He lifted Sansa's hand to brush his lips against her fingers. "Until tomorrow, Princess Stark." 

****

Jon stared down at the open Kingsguard book. Sandor Clegane's name glared up at him. The man had once been his enemy, and had been the first of kingsguard. And Sansa's hand had written his common name with such flourish. 

But the letter atop the page, addressed to simply Jon, was a barely legible scrawl. 

'Jon,

I am not sorry for what I have done. I have but one life, and I know now what it is meant for. The North beckons me home, and I will bring my new people to heel. Winterfell is waiting, as it always has been. 

I have taken three thousand men on horse who volunteered to raise the Stark banners in my support. They will not rest until Winterfell is seated by a Stark once more. 

When all is settled, you will visit me and show Lyanna her birthplace. 

Marry Val, the lords are but sheep and you are a wolf. Remember that, Jon. 

Your cousin,

Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell'

****

Sansa stood at the forefront of her cavalry, their shields emblazoned with a grey direwolf. Behind the cavalry stood the men and women who had bent the knee and chosen to follow her, to make Northeros, a new continent, their nation. The wights along the way had been killed with dragonglass, and the living bent the knee or fell in battle for refusing the choice of civilization. 

She could reach out and touch the Southern gate of Winterfell. With nothing to stop her, she did. Her mail and gauntlets glinted in the early morning light as she did so. 

A rasp called down, from the battlements. "This keep belongs to the Lady of Winterfell." 

Sansa stepped back and brought her hand up to shield her blue eyes. The face was obscured by the battlements. "Then I command you open these gates for your Lady." 

***

Sandor Clegane and Sansa Stark lay in a pile of furs, their heavy breathing the only sound in the room until Sansa's bright laughter escaped her bruised lips. 

She turned to her side and placed a chaste kiss over Sandor's heart before pulling back to stare at his face, the burned side hidden in the softness of a feather pillow. 

"Gods," he rasped, his heavy hand pulling gently at her hair. "I never thought I would see you in sunlight again." She had only been there a few hours, and the sun was high in the sky now, not a cloud to be seen. 

She sighed contentedly, "I never thought I would see you again," she whispered, as if the thought would manifest into the terrible reality she had escaped that morning. "I spent the last three years believing you were dead." 

Sandor growled and pulled her close, their bodies flush against each other. "Not for many years, Lady Stark."

Sansa felt him harden against her belly once more, and her face flushed with the thought that eight and twenty namedays, she had finally lost her maidenhead. And it had been to a man she loved. And what's more, she had married him in the sights of the Old Gods, in front of a grimacing weirwood tree not an hour after he'd opened the gates for her and her people. The home he had safeguarded for her against all odds, in his long ago promise to take her home. 

Right there, they had stripped each other in the sunlight and sunk into the dark pools of the Godswood to consummate their marriage in the light of day. 

"Are you sure?" he had asked her, his tattered cloak of a monk hovering over her shoulders. 

Sansa had looked over her shoulder at him, the weirwood leaves creating a red halo around his head as the early morning sun filtered through the foliage. "I'll not wait another moment, Sandor Clegane."

They had fallen in love during war and survived the Long Night only to fall into each other once more. A wolf and a hound.


End file.
